![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.conversiondiary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/7_quick_takes_sm1.jpg\" "\\"7_quick_takes_sm\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nAs the year winds to a close, and you may be starting to wonder Also, if you would like to do me a mitzvah, when you click any of the links on this page to do your Amazon holiday shopping (whether you\u2019re buying these books specifically or not), I get a small percentage of Amazon\u2019s price, which I use to buy\u2026 more books. \u00a0So, without further ado:<\/p>\n <\/a>\u2014 1 \u2014<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019d had this science fiction anthology on hold at the library for\u00a0months<\/em> in DC, but I didn\u2019t actually get the chance to read it til I was in California and got to borrow it from a friend. \u00a0I\u2019ve loved Ted Chiang since I read \u201cHell is the Absence of God\u201d and was blown away by the worldbuilding. \u00a0I love reading his short stories because they feel like I\u2019m falling into well-realized worlds that I\u2019d like to stay in and keep exploring afterwards. \u00a0And his tech developments tend to tease out human psychology more than physics.<\/p>\n You can read the title story of the collection here.<\/a>\u00a0 The protagonist works on understanding an alien language and this story made me delighted in some of the same ways ASL and Hofstadter do.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/a>\u2014 2 \u2014<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n When Jesse Galef arranged his bookshelf by Hogwarts House<\/a>, enough commenters popped up to tell him that\u00a0Strategy of Conflict\u00a0<\/em>belonged on the Slytherin shelf to guarantee this book on game theory a spot in my queue. \u00a0The author is the Schelling of Schelling Point<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the strategy or outcome that people will converge to in the absence of communication\u00a0(e.g. If you were told to meet someone in NYC, but not\u00a0where<\/em>, where would you turn up?).<\/p>\n It has mathy sections, along with plenty of story-like scenarios, so you can get a lot out of it whether or not you\u2019re reading the formulas and proofs. \u00a0If I wrote fiction, I think I\u2019d be glad to have read this just for the expansion of ways to cause and resolve conflict. \u00a0As it is, it felt like reading this book took a lot of strategies and ideas I knew about in isolation and knit them together. \u00a0(It\u2019s amazing how many tactics I recognized specifically from political wheeling and dealing in my college debate group<\/a>).<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/a>\u2014 3 \u2014<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n I have no idea how I made it to 24 without reading this. \u00a0Somehow I managed to read and see\u00a0QED<\/em><\/a>, the play based on Feynman before actually reading his memoir. \u00a0It was predictably delightful. \u00a0The science and math is very clearly explained, and Feynman\u2019s tinkerer\u2019s heart is apparent in every anecdote. \u00a0He is so full of joy at the prospect of understanding and tinkering with anything, whether it\u2019s high level physics or lockpicking. \u00a0I kept grabbing people to read parts aloud and then just squeal together appreciatively.<\/p>\n And I feel it\u2019s apropos to remind you of this:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/a>\u2014 4 \u2014<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Another book that I\u2019d heard praised repeatedly, and somehow never managed to pick up. \u00a0It\u2019s fascinating to see cities studied as dynamic systems, seeing how small adjustments (more light, fewer storefronts, etc) can trigger major shifts in the character of a neighborhood. \u00a0This seemed to pair well with Robert Nisbet\u2019s\u00a0The Quest for Community<\/a><\/em>, since both books look at structural problems preventing people from forming bonds with their neighbors and losing the opportunity to build institutions and traditions.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/a>\u2014 5 \u2014<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Technically, I didn\u2019t enjoy Undset\u2019s biography as much as I found it usefully unsettling. \u00a0It was high time I read\u00a0something<\/em> about St. Catherine, given how many Dominican friars I\u2019ve made friends with (and since I felt my St Catherine loyalty was strongly to St Catherine of\u00a0Alexandria<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n Undset\u2019s book is vivid and engaging, enough so that I kept flinching. \u00a0Everything about Catherine\u2019s life seemed so extreme and grotesque, from her miracles to her visions to her penances. \u00a0Her experience of Christ is much more mystical and visceral than my somewhat excessively academic and abstract approach, and I kept feeling overwhelmed to the point of being a little repulsed. \u00a0So, in the end, I was very grateful to Undset for making the saint specific enough to be overpowering.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/a>\u2014 6 \u2014<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n I am such a sucker for books-heavy memoirs. \u00a0In the worlds of Diane Duane<\/a>, Spufford definitely qualifies as a wizard (\u201cWizards love words. Most of them read a great deal, and indeed one strong sign of a potential wizard is the inability to get to sleep without reading something first\u2026\u201d). \u00a0I\u2019ve quoted from his book already<\/a> in a link round up, and I found his memoir had a pleasing mix of observations that made me feel intense kinship and new reflections for me to mull over.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/a>\u2014 7 \u2014<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Warning: don\u2019t read the Amazon description for\u00a0<\/em>Siege and Storm or\u00a0<\/em>Ruin and Rising since both contain major spoilers for the preceding books.<\/em><\/p>\n I read both of these books in Bardugo\u2019s Grisha trilogy in a single day. \u00a0And, as the word \u2018trilogy\u2019 suggests, I\u2019m looking for people to sucker in to wait impatiently until this summer for the debut of\u00a0Ruin and Rising<\/a><\/em>. \u00a0I do think the best way to pitch you all is to suggest you read one of Bardugo\u2019s stories set in the same world, \u201cThe Witch of Duva.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 I still don\u2019t know exactly how to explain it, but there\u2019s something very rich and unsettling about the world she\u2019s made, which is why I didn\u2019t put her books down once I picked them up. \u00a0So, hopefully a couple of you will be ensorcelled too, and I\u2019ll have people to kvell with.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\nwhat gifts<\/s>\u00a0which books to give friends and family for the holiday, I would, of course, like to remind you of the existence of\u00a0Arcadia<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0G\u00f6del Escher Bach<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0Reflections on the Psalms<\/em><\/a>, and the corpus of Sondheim, for this week\u2019s quick takes, I\u2019m sharing my seven favorite books I read for the first time<\/em> this year. \u00a0They are in the order I read them chronologically over the last eleven months.<\/p>\nStories of Your Life and Others<\/em><\/a> \u2013 Ted Chiang<\/h3>\n
The Strategy of Conflict<\/em><\/a> \u2013 Thomas Schelling<\/h3>\n
Surely You\u2019re Joking, Mr Feynman!<\/em><\/a> \u2013 Richard Feynman<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Death and Life of Great American Cities<\/em><\/a> \u2013 Jane Jacobs<\/h3>\n
Catherine of Siena<\/em><\/a> \u2013 Sigrid Undset<\/h3>\n
The Child that Books Built: A Life in Reading<\/em><\/a> \u2013 Francis Spufford<\/h3>\n
Shadow and Bone<\/em><\/a> and\u00a0Siege and Storm<\/em><\/a> \u2013 Leigh Bardugo<\/h3>\n
I\u2019d love to hear your favorite new reads of the year in the comments section!<\/em><\/h4>\n